TITHING 
A CHRISTIAN DUTY 


BYTERIAN BUSINESS MEN’S CONFERENCE 


REV. 0. P. GIFFORD, D. D. 


us eae vows DTA MEP 


The Law of the Tithe 


REV. H. CLAY TRUMBULL, D. D. 


THIRD EDITION 


HEBREWS VIE 
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNITED PRES- 
| SINGLE COPY, FIVE CENTS 


PUBLISHED BY THE 
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN MEN’S MOVEMENT 
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ALLEGHENY, PA. 


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Auy | 


Tithing, a Christian Duty 
Hebrews VII 


Any system is better than no system; the 
best system is none too good. The good is 
evermore the enemy of the better; the 
better is the worst enemy of the best. The 
constant danger is, of arrested develop- 
ment. ‘‘Remember Lot’s wife,’’ she lost 
what she had by not going on to get what 
she ought. Terah and Abraham started 
together out of Ur of the Chaldees. ‘And 
they came to Haran and dwelt there. And 
Terah died in Haran.’’ But not until he 
had begotten sons, many of whose de- 
scendants are with us in Church life today, 
men who start for the God-built city, but 
tarry in Haran. When the Holy Spirit 
brooded over chaos, division preceded 
evolution, water from water, life from 
death, low forms of life at first, then higher; 
first monkey, then man. But why, when 
you have come so far as the monkey, stop, 
get a cage, open a museum, and refuse to go 
further? What was good enough in the 
past tense of the verb of life is not good 
enough in the present tense. 


We believe in foreordination, but what is 
the use of being foreordained if we do not 
foreordain in turn? Man is not the end of 
God’s plan. He seeks to work through us, 
as well as up to us. , 


SYSTEM, NOT SPASM IS GOD’S METHOD. 


New Hampshire has developed two sorts 
of Baptists, Calvinistic and Free Will. Dr. 
A. J. Gordon’s father used to say he could 
tell one from the other by seeing their wood 
piles. ‘‘ Work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling, for it is God who 
worketh in you to will and to do of His 
good pleasure,’ and His good pleasure is 
systematic in you as well as outside you. 
The Bible is our law of life until He repeals 
it and inspires another, and the Bible 
teaches the best system of giving to Him. 

When the tide is at flood the sea seeks and 
fills all open bays, harbors, inlets, and 
forces the water back up the channels of the 
rivers. When a great truth floods the mind 
it fills all the forms of expression and 
moulds of thought. The mind of Christ 
was an open sea-board to the tidal move- 
ment of one great truth: the Kingdom of 
God. Hesaw what was in his mind when 
he saw a woman setting a patch on a gar- 
ment, mixing leaven with meal, pouring 
new wine into old wineskins: he saw the 
Kingdom of God. When he saw a man 


sh 


“ 


lifting a net filled with fish, sowing seed by 
the wayside, giving a feast, he saw the 
Kingdom of God. As the sunlight glorifies 
the windows in the church, so the great 
truth of the Kingdom glorified the common 
things of daily life. 

After the ascention, and the gift of the 
Holy Spirit, the Apostles began to preach, 
but they preached the King. In Jerusalem, 
on the day of Pentecost, in Antioch, on 
Mars Hill, in synagogue or public square, 
they preached the King. When a conquered 
province swears allegiance to the king, it 
accepts the law, institutions and will that 
make the kingdom. When the world 
swears allegiance to Christ as King, the 
Kingdom has come. When the King 
conquered Greece, Pan died. When the 
King entered the Roman Pantheon other 
gods fled. When Christ was accepted by 
the Jews as Messiah, their great men faded 
from sight as the stars fade when the sun 
rises. 

Moses was the great man in Hebrew 
thought. As Pharoah’s daughter lifted the 
babe from the Nile and gave him to 
Egyptian culture, so Moses lifted Israel 
from slavery, and gave them to liberty. 
Moses gave the law, religion, literature to 
Israel. But Moses was only a servant, 
Christ was the son: “the servant abideth 
not forever, the son abideth ever.’’ Side by 


3 


side with Moses stood Aaron the high 
priest, but Christ was High Priest forever 
after the power of an endless life, of the 
tribe of Judah. Back of Moses and Aaron 
stood Abraham. Back of the Niagara river 
is Lake Erie, but back of Erie the lake 
system and the drainage of the great 
Northwest. Back of Moses and Aaron was 
Abraham, the friend of God, the father of 
the children of Israel. ‘‘ The law came by 
Moses,”’ but lifecame from Abraham. The 
Hebrew’s highest boast was ‘‘Abraham is 
my father;’’ his fondest hope to rest in 
Abraham’s bosom. 


ABRAHAM LIVED BY FAITH. 


The law bracketed the national life for a 
time, but true life is by faith. 

Abraham and Lot got along nicely 
together so long as they were poor. Riches 
divide. Two poor men can live in one 
room. Each rich man wants a suite of 
rooms, and if heis very rich a whole house 
to himself. Wealth is centrifugal, poverty 
centripetal. Money pushes men apart, pov- 
erty binds them together. Abraham gave 
Lot the first choice. Once at least in the 
light of history, the senior partner gave the 
junior partner the first choice. Lot chose 
foolishly, thinking only of a pasturage for 
his flocks, and a market for his fleece and 
mutton. He was attacked, carried away 


4 


into captivity, bankrupted. Abraham came 
to his rescue, saved Lot and spoiled the 
kings. On his way back to Hebron he 
passed Jerusalem. There he met his master, 
Melchisedek, ‘‘Priest of the Most High 
God.’”’ The Jews emphasize ancestry, think 
much of heredity. Our family trees com- 
pared with theirs are as bushes to banyan 


trees, gourds as to century oaks. Our 
Daughters of the Revolution, or De- 


scendants of the Pilgrims, are children com- 
pared to centenarians. We drink filtered 
water, the Jews boast of filtered blood, 
rich and clear through the centuries. But 
Melchisedek had no coat of arms, no 
ancestry, no heredity; ‘‘ Without beginning 
of years or ending of days, a priest forever.”’ 
Yet Abraham paid tithes to him. ‘Christ 
is a priest forever after the order of 
Melchisedek.”” He is not in the line of 
Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, but of the tribe 
of Judah, after the order of Melchisedek. 
“Here men that die receive tithes, but there 
he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed 
that he liveth.”’ 


WE BELIEVE THAT THE EPISTLE TO THE 
HEBREWS WAS WRITTEN BY INSPIRATION, 
AND THE HOLY SPIRIT PUTS THE TITHE ON 
THE GROUND THAT CHRIST IS OUR HIGH 
PRIEST, NOT AFTER THE ORDER OF AARON, 
BUT OF MELCHISEDEK, GROUNDING IT, NOT 
IN THE LAW, BUT IN THE LIFE OF FAITH. 


5 


Ever and again I meet a man who rebels 
against the tithe because it was part of a 
legal system; who says, ‘‘I am not under 
law.’’ That is just the trouble with a large 
criminal class in the United States today, 
some poor, some rich, they are not under 
law. Do not, I pray you, class yourselves 
with such, lest a policeman put you where 
you can break law in thought, but not in 
act! When the Roman soldier found that 
Paul was a Roman he said “‘ At great price 
got I this liberty.’’ Liberty to do what? 
Obey law. And Paul said, “I was free- 
born.”’ Free to do what? 


FREEDOM IS THE FRUIT OF LAW, 


and carries in its heart a seed that builds a 
new body in conformity with law. The 
trouble is that there are altogether too 
many members of our churches who are 
not under law, who mistake liberty for 
license, who feel no sense of obligation to 
perform duty. ‘here is not a tree of the 
forest, a bird of the air, a fish in the sea, 
not under law. The Christian is under the 
law of life in Christ Jesus, and Christ is our 
High Priest, and we owe Him a tithe of 
our possessions. Do not mistake. 


LAW DOES NOT CREATE DUTIES, LAW RECOG- 
NIZES DUTIES, REGULATES DUTIES, 
ENFORCES DUTIES. 


Duties grow out of the nature of things. 
6 


To be, is to bein relation; to be in relation 
is to have duties, and law recognizes duties 
and seeks to regulate relations. When 
Robinson Crusoe was alone on the island he 
had no duties to his fellows, except to keep 
himself‘ so that when fellows might come 
he could bless and not curse. When he 
found Friday, relations commenced, duties 
began. He was under the law to recognize 
relations, and do duties. Laws passed at 
Harrisburg or Washington that are not 
based on the nature of things sink into 
innocuous desuetude, are neglected or re- 
placed. The law given by Moses, endures 
because it deals with relations that are real, 
and enforces duties that are natural. 


The law of Moses, did not create 
relations, nor duties. “Thou shalt not 
commit adultery.”’ Was it right to com- 
mit adultery before Moses gave the law? 
Is it right for those who never heard the 
law? Are you under the law ? Vegetable 
and animal life depend upon _ water. 
Water is formed of two gases, hydrogen 
and oxygen. To divorce these is to destroy 
life. The State depends for its stability up- 
on the family. The destruction of the 
family is the disintegration of the State. 
Adultery destroys the family and the State, 
poisons the stream of national life at its 
source, reverses the miracle of Elisha with 
the fount of Jericho and kills. An adulter- 


+ 
/ 


ous family is a doomed state. The law 
simply states a principle, enforces a duty, 
creates neither. 

“Thou shalt not kill.” That was not 
made a crime by stating alaw. Cain wasa 
criminal long before Moses was born. You 
cannot cut the threads and preserve the 
web. You cannot keep the State and 
murder the citizens. Family life must be 
pure, and individual life sacred. ‘‘Thou 
shalt not steal.”’ Property rights must be 
respected or there can be no trade, and 
without trade there can be no civilization. 
Men will not produce unless they can pre- 
serve. Peril to property breeds improvi- 
dence. Theft does not become a crime 
when law forbids it, it is recognized as a 
crime by law. 

“Thou shalt not bear false witness 
against thy neighbor.’’ ‘“‘A good name is 
rather to be chosen than great riches,”’ but 
you must not choose your neighbor’s good 
name. 


“Good name, in man or woman, dear my 
lord, 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis 
something, nothing; 

’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to 
thousands, 

But he that filches from me my good name, 

Robs me of that which not enriches him, 

And makes me poor indeed.”’ 


8 


The stealer of money can be caught and 
restitution made, but who shall catch and 
secure restitution of a good name filched ? 
Money I can earn again, but where a good 
name? But slander was not made a crime 
by the law, 

“Thou shalt not covet.’’ For that spirit 
wrongs the man who sins more than to 
steal. I am no poorer because you covet 
my estate, and you are no richer, but 
covetousness hath eaten out your soul 
like moth in garment, and the treasure you 
have is lost. You cannot enjoy what you 
have while you covet what I have. Covet- 
ousness is soul suicide. It was just as silly 
and wrong before Moses spoke as after. So 
of all the law. 


THE LAW DOES NOT MAKE THE ROAD, ANY 
MORE THAN THE GUIDE BOARD DOES, BUT 
IT DOES TELL WHERE TO GO, AND WHERE 
NOT. 


The law accepted the tithe, did not create 
it, wove it into the web of national life. If 
you refuse to tithe because Moses com- 
manded Israel to tithe, then be-logical and 
see how long the modern State will respect 
your position. The fact that so wise a man 
as Moses embodied the tithe in his system 
commends it to me. He was not of the 
kind that can see no good except he has 
created it, and cares more for freedom than 


for success. 
9 


The prophet enforces the tithe. 


MALACHI INSISTS THAT MEN WHO DO NOT 
PAY TITHES DO STEAL; THAT MEN:WHO 
ARE ABOVE OBEDIENCE TO LAW ARE BELOW 
THE LEVEL OF HONEST MEN. 


Christ commends the tithe. Abraham 
gave tithes; Moses commanded tithing; 
Christ commended tithing. What Christ 
commends is my command. He looked into 
the face of the scribes and Pharisees and 
said, ‘‘Ye pay tithes of mint, and anise 
and cummin, and have omitted the 
weightier matters of the law, judgment, 
mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have 
done, and not to leave the other undone.”' 
The Pharisees had no right to compromise 
with duties, to do one set and leave the 
other set undone. We are in danger of 
moral bankruptcy, of seeking to compro- 
mise with God for fifty per cent. We should 
not commend the man who tithes and 
omits the weightier matters, nor the man 
who attends to the weightier matters and 
omits the tithe. Both are commanded. 
The earth yields crops of two sorts, root 
and topcrops. We eat the roots and reject 
the tops, or eat the tops and reject the 
roots. No one cares for the top of a turnip, 
nor the roots of acabbage. But in dealing 
with the duties that grow in the garden of 
the Lord there is no such division. He who 


10 


breaks the least commandment is guilty of 
the whole. You must lock doors and bar 
windows if you would sleep safely. You 
must tithe and obey the weightier matters 
of the law if you would please the law 
giver. You do not win the right to steal by 
keeping the Sabbath, nor the right to break 
the Sabbath by paying your debts. 


OBEDIENCE TO THE TITHE IS AS MUCH A 
PART OF RELIGION AS JUDGMENT, MERCY 
AND FAITH. 


The divorce court threatens the stability 
of the State. Divorced duties threaten the 
Church. ‘What God hath joined together 
let no man put asunder,” in marriage or 
morals. Immorality lies not so much in 
the thing done, as in the motive for doing 
it. To dodge any duty is to reveal a wrong 
spirit, and no man knows what will follow 
when the spirit is wrong. Ye ought to 
worship God, ye ought to pay your debts, 
and the tithe is your debt to God. Ye 
ought to observe the ritual of religion, ye 
ought to be honest and righteous. Do not 
make your conscience a South Dakota 
where duties are divorced. 

But some one says, “‘ Christ was talking 
to Pharisees; his words have no bearing on 
my case.’’ If these words of Christ have no 
bearing on you, then no words of Christ 
are anything to you. All his teachings 


11 


were to the Jews, all his promises to met 
we never saw. 


IF YOU ARE GOING TO LIMIT THE APPLICA- 
TION OF HIS WORDS TO THE MEN HE 
SPOKE TO, YOU HAVE EVAPORATED THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 


The Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s 
Prayer, the promises of eternal life, the 
pledge of the resurrection, fall like snow 
flakes on a desert and are absorbed. 


CHRIST TAUGHT PRINCIPLES TO AND 
THROUGH MEN 


as the sun shines through these memorial 
windows and lifts the room out of dark- 
ness. Your attitude is the most dangerous 
and meanest form of higher criticism. We 
can handle unbeliever’s higher criticism, but 
the practical atheism of professed Chris- 
tians is the Judas kiss by Gethsemane. We 
flee from it and leave the Master in the 
hands of enemies, with the cross in sight. 
If Christians obey what Christ commands, 
the Church can defy the attacks of enemies. 
Achan in the army, was mightier than the 
men of Ai when Joshua tried to force the 
pass. 


TITHING IS SCIENTIFIC, IT PAYS WHEN 
TRIED, IN THE BUSINESS LIFE. 


Dr. Chadwick, of Leets, England, tells us 
12 


his experience in dealing with men. There 
were two members of his church who were 
poor; they formed a company to do busi- 
ness together; both were Christians. John 
said to Thomas and Thomas said to John: 
“Now we will give a certain per cent. of our 
profits to the Lord.” The first year the 
per cent. was small because the profits were 
small; it needed no great effort to give one 
cent out of ten cents, or ten cents out of a 
dollar; or one hundred out of a thousand, 
but when it came to ten thousand dollars 
out of a hundred thousand, they felt the 
pinch. The tide of prosperity rolled in; the 
second, the third and fourth years they kept 
their vow to God; the fifth year they said 
they were giving too much, they would give 
half as much hereafter; they divided their 
tenth into half, gave one-half and kept the 
other half themselves. That year they did 
not make a payment; in the second six 
months they were bankrupt. They went to 
the prayer room and side by side they knelt 
and vowed to redeem their vow to the 
living God. They found that the tide 
turned to prosperity again. 

But you say, “That is bribing God.” Is 
it? 

CAN YOU BRIBE GOD? 

A bribe means a man to buy, and a man 
to be bought. Can the God you worship be 
bribed? Then you had better change Gods. 


13 


Tithing is one condition of material pros- 
perity. Nine-tenths with God, will go 
further and do more than ten-tenths with" 
out Him. If it is wrong to succeed, why 
try? Ifitis right, why not try all ways? 
Is it bribing God to be industrious, eco- 
nomical, honest? Isit bribing God to pray 
for success? Then why is it bribing God to 
tithe when He has commanded that as 
truly as economy, honesty, prayer? The 
underlying fallacy of our daily life is, 
that certain hours belong to God, and the 
rest to us, certain duties belong to God, and 
the rest to us. ‘‘Seek ye first the kingdom 
of God and His righteousness,”’ always first 
in time and in interest. 


IT 18 NOT BRIBING THE GOVERNMENT’TO PAY 
YOUR TAXES. IT IS NOT BRIBING GOD TO 
PAY YOUR) TITHE. 


You do not give a tithe, you pay a tithe. 
You do not give until you have paid the 
tithe. Free-will offerings come later, 
through the open door of the tithe. You 
do not give God the Sabbath. He claims it. 
If vou wish to give him time out of the 
other six days, that is a gift. So of the 
tithe; it is God’s part of your prosperity. 
“As the Lord prospers.” But this was 
written to men who had been bred to tith- 
ing in Judaism and heathenism. The pro- 
portion had been set as a mould, the time 


14 


to pour in the money was declared to be the 
first day of the week for Christians. The 
doing of this duty, as of all moral duties 
has closest bearing on moral character, and 
so on prosperity. 


PAYING THE TITHE TO GOD, MAKES HIM A 
SILENT PARTNER IN YOUR BUSINESS, AND 
THUS SANCTIFIES YOUR WHOLE BUSINESS 
LIFE. THIS TITHE THAT IS DUE IS NOT 
THE MAXIMUM, BUT THE MINIMUM; THE 
CENTER OF THE CIRCLE NOT THE CIRCUM- 
FERENCE; BUT THE MAN WHO HAS A 
CENTER IS PRETTY APT TO HAVE A 
CIRCUMFERENCE. 


Marshall Field paid his taxes like an 
honest man; he gave largely afterward. 
Tax dodgers are not large givers. 

Because you keep the Sabbath, you are 
not at liberty to serve the devil the other 
six days. They are given to you for the 
doing of your own work, not the devil’s 
work. Through the open window of the 
Sabbath the light of the uplifted counte- 
nance floods the other six days. Through 
the tithe God smiles upon the nine-tenths. 
You know it pays to keep the Sabbath 
holy. You do not bribe God by obedience, 
yet He blesses all days because of obedience. 
_ It is not bribing God to pay the tithe, yet 
He blesses the nine-tenths because you pay 
your debt. 


15 


YOU DESPISE A MAN WHO IS DISHONEST WITH 
HIS FELLOWS. WHY HONOR THE MAN 
WHO IS DISHONEST WITH GOD? 


The blessing of God rests upon certain 
old fashioned virtues. The man who 
practices them is not attempting to bribe 
God. Honesty with God is quite as com- 
mendable as honesty with men. Do not 
pat yourself on the back when you pay 
your tax to the State, nor boast when you 
pay your tithe to God. ‘This ought ye to 
have done.’”’? And God blesses the man who 
does what he ought, but the blessing comes 
not from a bribed God. 

Dr. Chadwick told of a poor woman who 
had a small income; she owned a little 
house; for it she received ten shillings a 
week. Every Saturday night she placed 
the ten shillings side by side on the table. 
You know an English shilling is worth 
twenty-five cents. She took out the. 
shiniest one of the lot; she lived on the nine. 
Her pastor said: ‘‘You are giving too 
much.’’ She replied: ‘‘The dear Lord can 
make a penny do for two when I pay what 
ITowe Him.’ I would rather live on nine 
shillings with God than on one hundred 
dollars without Him. 

He had another member of his church, a 
most devout, pious member, a washer- 
woman; she said to her pastor: ‘I am 
giving all I can; I wash four days in the 


16 


week; I earn two dollars; I cannot spare 
any more.” A little later she came with 
radiant face and said: ‘‘A woman has en- 
gaged me to wash Fridays; what I earn in 
my Friday wash, I give to God. That is 
the happiest day in the week.’’ She was 
working five days, one day she gave her 
work to God. 


MONEY IS OF NO YALUE EXCEPT AS IT CAN 
MEET NEEDS. THE BEST USE BRINGS MOST 
HAPPINESS. 


A happy man can do more and better 
work, It pays to tithe in terms of money 
and happiness. 

Il. It pays in spiritual power. Malachi 
promises (3:10) that Jehovah will open the 
windows of heaven and pour out an un- 
measured blessing, when the tithe is 
brought in. The spring to the window of 
heaven is in the pocket of the worshipper. 
We grope for the spring with hands of 
prayer. Reach down, not up. Listen toa 
parable. I have a little box in the safety 
deposit vault, in the box a few savings, in 
my pocket the key. One day I went down 
to the vault, the keeper opened the door to 
me, walked to the box with me. I fell on 
my knees, and began to plead with the 
keeper to open the box. He said, ‘‘Isu’t the 
key in your pocket ?”’ I sprang to my feet, 
handed him the key, he opened the box. 

17 


The Church is on its knees before God, beg- 
ging Him to open the windows of heaven, 
to pour out a blessing; she pleads, she 
agonizes, she begs, and the voice of God 
asks, ‘‘Isn’t the key in your pocket?” 
“ Bring the whole tithe iato the storehouse, 
and try me now herewith saith the Lord of 
hosts, if I will not open the windows of 
heaven, and pour you out a blessing till 
there shall not be room to receive it.” 
Ours is a scientific age. ‘‘Prove me now 
herewith saith the Lord of hosts.’’ 


Nitrogen, they tell us, is a substance that 
builds up the human body. We find it in 
air. It enters the human body along the 
line of animal and vegetable life. Man 
finds that vegetable life exhausts the soil. 
Prophets tell us that when the earth 
becomes bankrupt humanity wi'l starve. 
Farmers tell us that rotation of crops re- 
imburses the soil: certain kinds of plants 
overdraw the bank account of nitrogen in 
the soil; other kinds deposit more than 
they take out. Peas, beans, clover and 
alfalfa draw nitrogen from the air and leave 
in the soil more than they use. Wheat, 
oats, barley and rye draw out more nitro- 
gen for their own use than they deposit in 
the soil. So the farmer sows seeds that de- 
posit a new bank account; they draw down 
nitrogen into the soil and he keeps on in 
business. 


18 


How can we get more nitrogen into the 
soil? Seven-tenths of the air is nitrogen. 
The earth lies on the threshold of the air, 
like Lazarus on the threshold of Dives’ 
palace: he cries for nitrogen while Dives is 
overloaded. The earth begs for nitrogen. 
How can we get the nitrogen from the air, 
then put it down into the earth to build 
crops? This is the great problem of 
agriculture. 

Many years ago a German experimented 
and learned some things: he analyzed the 
soil and found under the microscope that 
certain plants contain microscopical bac- 
teria full of nitrogen; the little fellows pick 
the pocket of the air and deposit the nitro- 
gen in the earth. Nitrogen is piled up 
around the roots of certain forms of plant 
life that it loves. On the roots of peas, 
beans, alfalfa and clover are little globules 
that reach up and bring the nitrogen down. 
Then with clover, peas, beans and alfalfa 
we enrich the soil, because nitrogen loves 
the roots of this kind of plant. These 
Germans studied the little bunches, cut 
them open and analyzed them. They found 
them full of little bacteria. They had 
secured a key to free nitrogen, their check 


was endorsed on the back by the air, they 
had an endless bank account, with the air 
above to enrich the poverty below. But 
they broke down; they could not make 
nitrogen commercially valuable. 


19 


Prof. Moore, of Washington, took up the 
discovery where the Germans broke down; 
he carried on the experiment until today the 
United States’ Agricultural Department 
prepares nitrogen in the form of a yeast 
cake; it is dissolved in water, seeds are 
soaked in it; a solution plowed into the 
soil increases the crop forty to four hundred 
per cent. You tell me that when a farmer 
dissolves nitrogen bacteria in water, soaks 
his seed in it, plants his seed to increase his 
crop four hundred per cent,, that he has 
bribed the air? He has simply mastered 
the secret of how to enrich the soil. 

IN GOD WE LIVE AND MOVE AND 
HAVE OUR BEING; THE BUILDING 
STUFF THAT MAKES ETERNAL LIFE 
IS LARGE IN GOD; THE BUILDING 
STUFF THAT MAKES ETERNAL LIFE 
IS SMALL IN MAN. HOW CAN WE 
REACH UP AND GET ETERNAL LIFE 
AND BRING IT DOWN TO MEET OUR 
NEED? 

Pray? Yes. Search the Scriptures? Yes. 
Is that bribing God? Tithe? Yes. Bring 
home the tithes in the storehouse and prove 
the Lord if He will not open the windows 
of heaven and pour out a blessing such that 
there shall not be room to contain it. 

Is it bribing to live according to known 
law? 

Is it bribing favor to obey discovered 

20 


law? Then never pray again; never read 
the Scriptures again; never try to do a 
righteous act again. The channels through 
which the power of spiritual life flows out 
are the channels of prayer and the channels 
of the tithe. 

Is it a bribe to open the channels of 
spiritual life by prayer? It is no bribe. 
Paying the tithe is no bribe; it is paying 
a debt. You may pray and read and sing 
and agonize and toil, but unless you meet 
all the requirements you cannot get the free 
nitrogen of the eternal God to build perfect 
character. 

If it is wrong to prosper in business, do 
not try to; if it is right try every right 
means. If it is wrong to prosper in 
spiritual life, quit praying and struggling 
and trying to develop Christian character; 
if it is right, try every right means. In 
your business, when you started you used 
common sense. Use common sense in the 
spiritual life, try every experiment, test 
every law, bend every energy. Be as 
scientific as in any form of life God has 
given man. 


CHRIST IS THE HIGH PRIEST OF 
OUR CONFESSION. WE COME TROOP- 
ING UP FROM THE VALLEV, AFTER 
THE STRUGGLE, WITH OUR SPOILS. 
LET US LAY THE TITHE OF OUR 
POSSESSIONS AT THE FEET OF THE 


21 


HIGH PRIEST OF OUR CONFESSION 
AND HE WILL BLESS US IN OUR 
BUSINESS AND IN OUR SPIRITUAL 
LIFE. 


APPENDIX 


Reckoning the Tithe 


We assume that you have reached the 
point where you believe the tithe or tenth of 
your income belongs to God, that the tithe 
is not a gift, but answering a claim. One 
seventh of the time, one tenth of the 
property. The Sabbath is not to be used 
for personal gain, the tithe is not to be 
spent by you on yourself. Day and money, 
time and tithe belong to God. 

When Abramam paid tithes to Melchise- 
dek, he gave one tenth of a// the spoils. He 
did not reckon the cost of equipping his 
army, the cost of the campaign, did not de- 
duct any amount from the whole treasure. 

When Jacob made his vow to Jehovah on 
Bethel, he said, ‘‘ Of al/ that thou shalt give 
me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” 
There is no hint of counting out the cost of 
getting. If you cut a loaf into ten parts 
and give one part, you do not count the 
cost of flour, yeast, labor, heat, before cut- 
ting the tithe slice. If a man furnishes 
capital, on condition that he receive a tithe 
of all that comes to you, he must have one 
tenth as much as youdo of all that comesin. 


22 


In the matter of salary the division is 
easy, one dollar in ten, taken out of the en- 
tire sum, before personal expenses are 
reckoned. ‘ 

With the farmer, one tenth of the grain 
when reaped, of the cattle when sold, of the 
fruit when gathered, and one tenth of the 
money received in the market. For the 
farmer has had his shelter and board and 
warmth off the farm while working it. He 
is a fixed charge, and has taken cost of pro- 
duction out as he goes along, the cost of 
horses and oxen and care of help has come 
out of the farm as he works men and 
animals. 


If in business, the net that remains after 
rent, interest on money, Salaries of help, 
but not personal expenses. If a partner 
shares in the gross receipts, he must also 
share in the expenses. If you tithe the 
gross then take out the tithe of expenses. 
Or the tithe might be reckoned one of the 
fixed charges, as taxes are, to come out of 
the gross amount, reckoned with insurance. 
“Let a man be fully persuaded in his own 


mind.’’ “If any man lack wisdom let him 
ask of God, who giveth unto men liber- 
ally aud npbraideth not.’’—If a man seek 


first the kingdom of God, and His 
righteousness, all other things shall be 
added, and among the additions will be 
additions of wisdom to settle detail. 


23 


The Law of the Tithe 


BY THE LATE H. CLAY TRUMBULL, D. D. 


There are some duties which the Bible 
seems to recognize as understood from the 
beginning. There is no mention of their 
origin and first announcement. Their 
violation, or their performance is 
mentioned incidently in the sacred story 
long before they are recorded as specifically 
enjoined. It appears to be taken for 
granted that they were known to be duties 
at man’s very start in the world. 

There is no record, for instance, of any 
law against murder until after the Deluge; 
but Cain was not exculpated from guilt on 
the ground that he had never been told not 


to kill his brother. There is no command | 


to prayer-—either public or private prayer— 
in any of the earlier books of the Bible. 
but most of the patriarchs whose story is 
elaborated are represented as in the habit of 
prayer. And although the duty of praying 
is not specifically enjoined in the Ten Com- 
mandments, it was and is recognized as of 
universal obligation. The duty of tithe- 
giving—of giving one tenth of one’s entire 


24 


income to the Lord—is one of these duties 
which seems to have needed the record of 
no original announcement or injunction. 
Like prayer, tithe-giving was practiced by 
the patriarchs long before the proclamation 
of the Mosaiclaw. While as in the case of 
prayer, it finds no specific mention in the 
Decalogue, tithe-giving has had, and it has, 
a widespread recognition in the world--a 
recognition that would be as nearly uni- 
versal as that given to prayer, if it were 
not that it costs so much more. 


The first Bible mention of tithes is in the 
fourteenth chapter of Genesis, where Abram 
returning from the slaughter of the kings, 
was met by Melchisedek, ‘‘a priest of the 
most high God,”’ and he gave him tithes of 
all the spoils. It does not appear by the 
record that that act on Abram’s part was 
something unlike anything ever done before. 
On the contrary, it appears to have been 
the spontaneous performance of a most 
seemly and fitting act—the performance 
indeed of a plain duty; for Abram did not 
count those particular spoils of battle his 
own; he looked at them as _ properly 
belonging to the king of Sodom; but 
whosesoever they were, one tenth of them 
belonged to the Lord and must be handed 
to the Lord’s representative. -_He de- 
livered the spoils of battle to their right- 
ful owner—with the ‘‘Government tax 


25 


paid.” The duty of tithe-giving would, 
therefore, seem to rest on the common law 
of God's kingdom, rather than on any 
specific statutory requirement. 


Yet there is no lack in the Bible of specific 
commands for tithe-giving, or of explicit 
commendation for the performance of this 
duty, and the denunciations of those who 
neglect it. We haye found this duty 
recognized in the first book of the Old 
Testament. Later we find specific and re- 
peated commands for its continued exercise. 
In the last book of the Old Testament, we 
find its neglect denounced of God as 
nothing short of robbery. ‘‘ Will a man 
rob God?” he asks. Is there a man bad 
enough to deliberately steal from God? 
That is God’s question; and his answer to 
itis: ‘Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, 
wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes 
and offerings.’’ In other words, if any of 
you profess to be the Lord’s children and 
have failed to pay over to the Lord his tenth’ 
of your income, you are thieves; that is the 
plain English of the Bible teaching on this 
subject. 

It is all very well for a disciple of Christ 
to affirm that he is no longer bound by the 
letter of the law on either of these points, 
if he unmistakably lives up to the spirit 
of that law. If he really counts and 
uses every day, and all his income, as the 


26 


Lord’s, a Christian man need not be 
particular to bring either his religious giv- 
ing down to the exact one-tenth of his in- 
come, or his religious rest and worship 
down to the exact one-seventh of the week. 
But if he means to use his Christian 
liberty to excuse him from giving as large a 
share of his time and income to the Lord as 
the Jewish law, and as God’s common law 
of all ages, required from a man, then he is 
not only what God calls a robber, but a 
robber under the cloak of Christianity—a 
hypocritical robber. The widow who cast 
in ‘‘all her living’’ to the temple treasury | 
was excusable for not stopping to be partic- 
ular about tithes. But she, by the way, had 
doubtless paid her tithes before she made 
that offering. So might any man be thus 
excusable who was sure he never gave less 
than a quarter of his income into the Lord’s 
treasury. Just here let it be said that when 
we speak of giving into the Lord’s treasury 
in these days we mean giving at the Lord’s 
call to causes which the Lord approves as 
his own —whether through strictly religious 
channels or in lines of private beneficence. 
Of course the support of one’s family, or the 
giving to anyone who is properly dependent 
on us for support, is not such giving to the 
Lord. The Jews never counted the cost of 
their personal or family sacrifices at the 
temple as a part of their tithe-giving. 


o7 


“ 


The Jews, again, never counted their 
alms-giving as a part of their tithe-paying, 
yet alms-giving was always a sacred duty 
with the Jews. Their alms-giving could not 
begin until their tithes were already pro- 
vided for. Their charities must be out of 
the nine-tenths of their income—not out of 
’ the Lord’s one-tenth. Who then supposes 
that the New Testament commands to give 
systematically and freely were intended or 
were understood as covering in all less than 
the very lowest limits of Jewish and 
heathen religious giving? It is an absurd- 
ity to suggest such a thought. ‘Freely ye 
have received, freely give.’’ ‘‘Sell that ye 
have, and give alms.”’ “Upon the first day 
of the week let everyone of you lay by him 
in store, as God hath prospered him.”’ 
“Every man according as he purposeth in 
his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, 
or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful 
giver.”’ ‘‘Remember the words of the Lord 
Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to | 
give than to receive.’ ‘‘If, therefore, ye 
have not been faithful in the unrighteous 
mammon, who will commit to your trust 
the true riches?’’ Let a man read over these 
and many like injunctions from the New 
Testament, in the light of the Old Testa- 
ment record, and then say, if he can, that a 
Christian can have common honesty before 
God while not giving at least one-tenth of 


28 


his income to the Lord’s cause. 

“‘But all that we have and are, are the 
Lord’s,”’ says one. ‘‘How, then, can it be 
said that we are bound to give one-tenth 
any more than two-tenths to the Lord? 
We are Christian stewards, in the use of all 
that is committed to us.’’ No, that is not 
a fair stating of the case. The Christian 
stewardship applies only to the nine-tenths 
of that which comes to us as our income. 
The one-tenth is not given to us for such 
use as we see fit to make of it. That is the 
Lord’s from the beginning. It is, in fact, 
the basket in which the Lord sends to us 
the nine-tenths which he commits to our 
keeping. If we do not hand that right 
back to him, we steal his basket. Could 
anything be meaner than that? Yet here 
are men and women—members of Chris- 
tian churches— who have been storing up 
those stolen baskets for years, counting 
them in their inventory, and pointing to 
them triumphantly as showing how bounti- 
fully the Lord has blessed them. “ Will a 
man rob God?” Sure enough — will he? 


“But,’’ says another, ‘‘I have debts to 
pay and myincome must be devoted to that 
before it can fairly be available for the 
charities. I ought to be just before I am 
generous.’’ Of course your creditors havea 
prior claim to strangers on your income. 
And of course you ought to be just. But 


29 


are all your other creditors to be preferred 
above the Lord? Is there any injustice in 
your ignoring His fair claim upon you? 
One of the meanest things that any business 
man can be capable of is the dividing 
up his assets without a share to his en- 
dorser. If you refuse to pay over the first 
tenth of your income to the Lord as a pre- 
ferred creditor, you do a meaner thing than 
the man who delibertly swindles his en- 
dorser. The tithe of one’s income to the 
Lord is not a charity: it is one’s first and 
most pressing debt—a debt of honor; a 
sacred and supreme obligation; an obliga- 
tion resting on each and every Christian 
believer. The tithe is not the outermost 
limit of a believer's duty in religious giving; 
but it is the innermost limit. Many a 
Christian ought to give far more than this; 
never one ought to give less—less than one- 
tenth of his actual income, whether that in- 
come be little or much. 

In recognizing the duty of tithe-giving 
when one’s income is limited and one’s 
personal and family needs are great, it is 
essential to recognize the supernatural 
element in God’s providential care of his 
children. If a Christian man has an income 
large enough to supply all his needs with- 
out difficulty, there is neither shadow of 
excuse nor show of decency in his failure to 
pay over one-tenth of it to the Lord. But 


30 


when one feels the pinch of poverty every 
day of his life, then it is important that he 
should bear in mind that 9 cents will go 
farther than 10 cents would go and that 
$9 will go farther than $10 would go in 
providing for himself and his loved ones, 
when that other cent or that other dollar 
has been paid to the Lord who claims it as 
His own. There is no mistake about this 
to him who has faith. Every child of God 
who has rested on this truth has found it to 
be a source of unfailing dependence. Only 
those disbelieve it who have never trusted 
God enough to try it even as an experiment. 
It is with individuals as it is with churches 
in this matter. Neither their troubles nor 
their doubts ever come from their giving 
too freely of their substance to the Lord. 
The old colored preacher had the right idea 
about this when he said: “I hab nebber 
known a church killed by too much gibbing 
to de Lord. If dere should be such a 
church, and I should like to know about it, 
I tell you what I’ddo. I’d go down to dat 
church dis berry night, and I’d clamber up 
its moss-cobered roof, and I’d sit straddle 
of its ridge pole, and I’d cry aloud, ‘ Blessed 
are de dead which die in de Lord.’”” Dying 
for duty-doing—starving to death for tithe- 
giving to the Lord—is a good way of dying; 
but there is less danger of death in that line 
than in any other that the writer knows of. 


31 


It was twenty-three centuries ago that 
God said to some of His children who had 
doubts on this point: “‘ Bring all the tithes 
into the store house that there may be meat 
in mine house and prove me now herewith. 
* * * if I will not open you the windows of 
heaven and pour you out a blessing that 
there shall not be room enough to receive 
it.’’ And it was twenty-six centuries ago 
that an experiment of this was fairly made 
among God’s people. As a result of it, the 
tithes lay in great heaps, beyond the ability 
of the Lord’s priests to make use of them. 
““Then Hezekiah questioned with the priests 
and the Levites concerning the heaps. And 
Azariah, the chief priest of the house of 
Zadok, answered him, and said, Since the 
people began to bring offerings into the 
house of the Lord, we have had enough to 
eat, and have left plenty: for the Lord hath 
blessed his people: and that which is left is 
this great store.”’ 

Today, if all the Lord’s people would 
bring in their tithes to the Lord’s treasury, 
the money would lie in heaps waiting for 
new machinery to put it into motion. 
What do you think is the prospect of such 
a financial freshet in the religious channels 
of beneficence? Are YOU doing your share 
to bring it about ? 


VALUABLE LITERATURE 


which every man in the United Presbyterian 
Church should have. 


1. The Men’s Record, the Official 
Organ of the United Presbyterian 
Men’s Movement. Published monthly. 
Subscription only 25c a.year. No man can 
possibly keep abreast of this movement without 
. The Men’s Record. Every man in your 
church should receive it regularly. It will be 
enlarged without advancing the price, as the 
subscription list grows. 

2. Constitution and Manual of the Men’s 
League of the United Presbyterian Church, in- 
cluding suggestions for each Department of 
Service; 32 page Booklet. Single copy, 5c; 
30c per dozen, $2 per 100, postpaid. 

3. Oxidized Steel Banks for self-denial offer- 
ings, 75c each. 

4. ‘‘ Tithing, a Christian Duty,’’ by Dr. O. P. 
Gifford, and ‘‘ The Law of the Tithe,’’ by Dr. 
H. Clay Trumbull, 32 page Booklet. Single 
copy, 5c; 30c per dozen, $2 per 100, postpaid. 

5. ‘The Victory of Mary Christopher,’’ by 
Rey. Harvey Reeves Calkins. A powerful ap- 
peal for the tithe, in story form; will interest 
old and young. It brings results. Cloth bound, 


25¢ each. 

6. Bible Reading Calendar, 15¢a doz.; $1 per 100, 

7. “Studies for Personal Workers, » Dr. H. A. 
Jobnston, 25¢ each, 

8. “How to Bring Men to Christ,’? Dr. R. A. 
Torrey, 25c each. 

9. ‘* Individual Work for Individuals,” Dr. H. 
Clay Trumbull, 35¢ each. 


Send ali orders to 


UNITED PRESBYTERIAN 
MEN’S MOVEMENT 


616 WEST NORTH AVENUE 
ALLEGHENY, PA, 


